Afternoon delight — because it’s National Chocolate Day

Christopher’s Kitchen chocolate ganache tart with vanilla ‘ice cream’ is topped with caramel sauce and bananas that have been tossed with coconut nectar. (LibbyVision.com)

A mid-afternoon craving for my new favorite choco-bite — Ghirardelli dark chocolate squares filled with a sigh of sea salt-caramel — left me wanting. We polished off the last of those little squares earlier in the week.

It’s a bit of a bummer to be chocolate-deprived on National Chocolate Day, which is today. Then again, who says food editors are ever chocolate-deprived, when we have access to stacks of decadent chocolate images? So, in the spirit of this mini-holiday, allow me to share a visual ode to chocolate. There’s no harm — or calories — in just looking.

The Grown Up Cookies Milk, created by Buccan pastry chef Antonia Grandberry: brown-butter, chocolate-chunks cookies with a Bailey’s milkshake. (Photo by Andy Ryan)